Travelers who are forced to sit for a long time in an upright posture have long struggled with obtaining adequate neck support so that back or neck problems do not appear or become worse as a result of their having to sit for a long time in planes, cars, or trains. As a result of this problem, a neck pillow 20 as shown in FIG. 2, has been developed. It is a horseshoe-shaped collar which, quite often, is an inflatable structure and, more recently, has been filled with foam, feathers, or organic granular or bark-type materials. A side and top view of the conventional neck pillow is shown in FIGS. 3 and 4. FIG. 1 shows the use of a neck pillow by the traveler sitting in an upright seat. The pillow, ideally, fits around the neck and sits on the shoulders and supports the back of the neck to prevent the head from tilting sharply to one side, so that any hinging of the neck (such as might occur when a person nods off to sleep) is minimized. However, unless an inflatable pillow (which is generally considered by most travelers to be not very useful) is used, once the traveling time is over, a horseshoe-shaped travel pillow becomes a weight to be carried around and stored until the next usage.
The use of such a pillow for sleeping on a horizontal surface, for example, as shown in FIG. 5, is contrary to popular experience where a plain, rectangular-type pillow 22, a perspective view of which is shown in FIG. 6 (a side view of which is shown in FIG. 7) supports the head of a sleeping person 24 as shown in FIG. 5. The conventional-type pillow 22, as shown in FIG. 6, has all the disadvantages of a standard airline-type pillow, namely, that it does not remain propped on one's shoulders but slides down one's back every time one leans forward. It is not an acceptable alternative for the most demanding travelers.
Travelers are therefore faced with the issue of whether they want to take along a pillow which is good for their neck and back and then have to carry it around and store it within their luggage until the next seated usage. Travelers are interested in having a pillow which they may use both for traveling and also in other instances. For example, travelers are searching for pillows which may be used in a normal horizontal sleep configuration that provides them better neck support and a more consistent night's rest lying horizontally, and which also maintains the advantages of a travel-type neck pillow when they are traveling.